1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a press contact terminal which is pressed on an electric wire arranged on a wiring board and having a tab portion erecting from the wiring board, and relates to an electric connection box using the press contact terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 shows an example of a press contact terminal 1 of a related art. The press contact terminal 1 is comprised of a press contact blade portion 2 having an electric-wire slit 2a and a tab portion 3 being formed integrally with the upper portion of the press contact blade portion 2 and extended in a linear shape.
FIG. 2 shows an example of a wiring board 5 of a related art. The wiring board 5 has many terminal fitting grooves 6 formed in parallel with a top and bottom surfaces and electric wires 7 are inserted in the electric-wire slits 2a of the terminals 1 fitted in the terminal fitting grooves 6, respectively.
When the press contact blade portion 2 of the press contact terminal 1 is inserted into the terminal fitting groove 6 of the wiring board 5, a conducting wire 7a of the electric wire 7 inserted into the electric-wire slit 2a is pressed on the press contact blade portion 2 and the press contact terminal 1 is fixed in the terminal fitting groove 6. The tab portion 3 of the fixed press contact terminal 1 is erected from the wiring board 5.
In the related art, however, the tab portion 3 can be erected only from the same surface of the wiring board 5 where the electric wire 7 is laid. Thus, in a case where the tab portions 3 to be connected to the same electric wire 7 are required to be erected from both of the top and bottom surfaces of the wiring board 5, it is necessary to lay the electric wire 7 on both surfaces of the wiring board 5 and to erect the press contact terminals 1 on both of the top and bottom surfaces thereof. Thus, this increases the number of parts because two presses contact terminals 1 need to be used for the top and bottom surfaces.
There is another method to prepare a press contact terminal having a tab portion to be erected from a surface opposite to the surface of the wiring board 5 where the electric wire 7 is laid. However, this method needs to make two kinds of press contact terminals and therefore the manufacturing cost of the terminal is increased (in particular, manufacturing cost of a die).
The present invention has been made to solve the above problem. It is the object of the present invention to provide a press contact terminal that can reduce the manufacturing cost of the press contact terminal and the number of parts in a case where tab portions are erected from the same and opposite surfaces of the surface of a wiring board where electric wires are laid, and an electric connection box using the press contact terminals.
In order to solve the foregoing problem, according to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a press contact terminal comprising: a press contact blade portion pressed on an electric wire; a pair of tab portions being extended mutually in opposite directions with the press contact blade portion as a middle position; and a middle connection portion connecting the pair of tab portions to the press contact blade portion.